Alphabet Soup: In my dreams
by Windfighter
Summary: Back in Norway Sigrun keeps dreaming about Tuuri, about what she had to do to the other. With the hunting season starting again she's hoping to get distracted from her dreams.


One more story for the Alphabet Soup, and yet again I'm not even looking in Emil's direction! I must be sick or something!

 **Warnings:** Character death. Blood. Lots of blood. A bit of angst. Kissing.

* * *

 _"Sigrun, what are you..."_

 _Blood everywhere. Blood and tears. Tears she wouldn't shed. She was drowning in them, couldn't breathe, couldn't see. All she could see was the floating body of her friend, of the one she had loved and she wanted to pull it closer, hold it until the world disappeared. But she couldn't reach it._

Sigrun sat up in the bed. Her breaths were heavy, her cheeks wet. She leaned forward, tried to regain herself. Another dream, it was just a dream. Tainted by memories she didn't want to remember. She leaned against the wall, looked out the window. Did the others go through the same thing every night? She doubted it. It was she who had been forced to put fuzzy-head down. Not the others.

Put her down... Sigrun hated that phrase. It made it sound like Tuuri had been their pet. Tuuri had been so much more than that. She had been their colleague, their friend, Sigrun's... Sigrun clenched her hands. Her lover. The other four hadn't known, Sigrun hadn't wanted them to know. After the expedition, she had promised Tuuri. They still didn't know, there wasn't any reason for her to tell them after she had brutally murdered her only love.

Sigrun tried to focus her eyes on the nothingness that was going on outside the window. She could see a couple of the night guards patrolling the area. In the morning they'd leave camp and hunt for beasts. A few had been spotted nearby a couple of nights ago. She had been the first one to jump on the opportunity to get out there. She knew it was an attempt to escape from her feelings, knew she was hoping that the adrenaline would push the memories aside. She knew it wouldn't.

She let out a sigh, pushed the blanket aside and got up from the bed. She wouldn't be able to sleep again, the images were still too fresh in her mind. She put on her training clothes, left the room and went for a run. The night air was cool against her skin as she ran two, four, ten laps around the camp. Twenty push-ups, forty, fifty... Sigrun's arms shook and she fell to the ground, her eyes full of tears. She rolled over to her back, looked at the stars. Would Tuuri be waiting for her in Valhalla? Or did Finns go somewhere else? The sky was already getting brighter, only the strongest stars was visible and she sat up again, leaned against her knees. She had to stop getting distracted. They needed her to focus, she was the _captain_ for Odin's sake. Her men counted on her to keep them safe. She pushed herself off the ground and ran another lap around the camp, did some sit-ups, got herself an early breakfast in the dining hall.

Tiredness startes creeping in as the dining hall filled up with the other men. She stifled a yawn, took another slice of bread and laughed together with Sigrid and Reidar as they told her about other adventures she had missed during her "vacation". Sometimes they tried to get her to tell stories about what she had done in Denmark, but she brushed it off, tried to act like it hadn't been anything special, tried to not let her smile crack. She rubbed her eyes, failed to catch a yawn and got up from the table, stretched.

"I'm gonna get ready to head out, later."

There was time for her to catch a few minutes sleep, the gods knew she needed that. She showered quickly, changed into her uniform and sat down on her bed, leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.

 _"Sigrun, what are you..."_

 _Blood everywhere. Blood and tears. She was drowning, wasn't ready to go to Valhalla yet. She leaned down, wiped the blood off Tuuri's face, placed a kiss on the now cold lips._

 _"Sigrun, are you ready to go?"_

 _Mikkel's voice and Sigrun wiped her tears, but they wouldn't stop. The room was filling up, and she was tired, didn't have the strenght to swim._

Sigrun gasped and opened her eyes. Her hands clenched the sheets and she tried to let go, had to force herself to open her hands. The room came back to her senses, the cold dream disappearing but still all too real in her memory. She closed her eyes, took a shaky breath. Forced herself to smile. She couldn't grin like she used to, so smiling was all she could do to keep the questions at bay. She glanced at the watch as she got up from the bed. Still 15 minutes before they had to gather, but there was no use trying to get some more sleep. She didn't want to dream about it again. Instead she grabbed her weapons and went to the meeting place. Reidar was already there and she was thankful it was him and not Trygve or Eivor. Reidar didn't ask questions. He nodded to her and she leaned against the wall next to him.

"Excited?" she asked.

Reidar shrugged, glanced at her and she tried to grin like she used to.

"It'll be fun", she said. "It's just a pack of beasts."

"A large pack though", Reidar said. "Swiftness and agility will be more valueable than my strenght this time."

"Maybe there'll be a bear for you to slay."

Sigrun tried not to shiver at the images that flashed in her mind when she said that last word. If they saw her distracted they might take her off the team and she couldn't stand that, couldn't stand losing the hunting just like she lost Tuuri.

"Maybe", Reidar smiled and Sigrun was pulled back to reality, tried catching up with it and getting the memories that fogged up her mind to disappear. The area filled up, the generals gave them their instructions and then they were off.

Sigrun took the lead. Sigrun always took the lead. She was the one who got stuff done. That's why she was the captain, the one who made the others act. She knew the mountains like the back of her hands, knew the forests like her pocket. The beasts wasn't far away, they had gotten closer during the night, and she ran, her colleagues ran. One of the dayscouts led the way, but Sigrun was right behind him and the others were right behind her. At a sign from the scout they all stopped as one man, waited while he scouted ahead.

"Ten of them in there", he said when he returned. "All deers. There are tracks from bears and foxes so we should be careful and get done as quickly as possible."

"Anything else?" Sigrun asked and put her hands to her sides as she started figuring out how they should do this.

"A couple of mooses, but if we stay down-wind they shouldn't notice us."

"Where they infected? Immune?"

"Too far away for me to tell. They're not a threat right now, but we'll keep an eye on them in case they wander closer."

Sigrun nodded, turned towards her men.

"Y'all heard that? We're up against ten deers. Medium-sized and quick beasts so we need to surprise them, and cut off their retreat. We're going to circle them and slowly close in. Then y'all do what you do best."

Nodding, words of encouragement exchanged between the others and Sigrun followed the scout as he showed them where the deers were, they all started circling them. Sigrun's hand gripped around the handle of her knife. They could have used guns, there wasn't any other infected creatures to worry about, but that would have alerted the deers they didn't take out right away that something was going on, a few would have gotten away. Closer. Sigrun inched closer. She held her breath, afraid that any noise would scare them off or even worse – make them attack. Closer, closer. Her eyes locked onto the closest deer. One swift strike to the head. She was close enough now.

With a cry she leapt out of the grass, charged towards the deer. It turned towards her, its eyes locked onto Sigrun and Sigrun froze, stared at it.

 _Blood was everywhere._

Worms were crawling in its eyes, but they were so innocent.

 _"Sigrun, what are you..."_

The eyes were so much like Tuuri's. Scared, innocent, deep. She couldn't move. Her knife fell to the ground.

 _She was drowning. Drowning in Tuuri's blood and her own tears._

Sigrun fell to her knees. Her eyes locked to the deer's eyes and it lowered it's head, pulled it's skin off and revealed several sharp limbs before it charged into Sigrun's direction. Her hand found the knife again, she got to her feet, started charging.

Sigrun's blood was everywhere. Her body hit a tree as the beast threw her away. She slid to the ground, placed a hand over the bleeding wound on her chest, looked at the blood that now covered her hand, her arm, her stomach, her legs. She tried to breathe, but her lungs were already full. She tried to cough, but new blood replaced what she managed to get up. Her hand fell to the ground again, she fell to her side, her eyes could no longer see.

xxxxxxx

Something soft brushed against her lips. She didn't want to open her eyes, wanted to stay in the darkness, but the sunlight was warm against her skin and her eyes opened. Round, gray eyes met hers and she lifted her hand, placed it on the sligthly rosy cheek.

"Good morning, my little mountain ape."

Tuuri's voice was soft and Sigrun smiled, grinned, giggled, laughed. She pulled Tuuri down, hugged her, placed herself over the other and caught her lips with her own, greedily tasting them. Her fingers buried into Tuuri's hair, Tuuri's fingers traced her back, gently pushed her off and Sigrun fell down beside Tuuri, looked at the one she had dreamt about every night for so long.

"You look great", she whispered. "Is this a dream?"

Tuuri nuzzled into Sigrun's chest and Sigrun fell to her back again, embraced the other and buried her head into Tuuri's hair.

"I'm dead, aren't I?" she whispered.

There was no fear in her voice and Tuuri looked at her, nodded.

"I've waited for you. I wanted to see you. They'll guide us soon."

Sigrun's fingers traced Tuuri's lips and Tuuri kissed them, grabbed Sigrun's hand and kissed her lips instead.

"I wanted to thank you. For what you did. I'm sorry you had to do it. I know how much it hurt you."

Sigrun looked away, turned back to Tuuri when the images didn't dance across her mind this time.

"I'm glad to see you're doing better."

Sigrun's hand hugged Tuuri's, her other traced Tuuri's back, made its way in under her shirt and she kissed the younger woman again.

"How much time do we have?"

Tuuri returned the kiss, smiled towards Sigrun.

"As much time as we need."


End file.
